


Love's not mechanical

by ermengarde



Category: GlamRPF
Genre: LBB, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-07
Updated: 2011-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ermengarde/pseuds/ermengarde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein an alien (or possibly a robot) arrives in Adam's backyard (and a very literate bomb goes off in his living room), Monte drives around with potentially stolen property (and gives a quick lesson in good manners), Neil is a reluctant subject matter expert (and entirely blames Adam for this being his life), Tommy wants to learn everything (and is really fucking awesome on bass) and Simon Cowell is trying to take over the world.</p><p>Or: What would happen if Short Circuit had a little more Lambliff and a lot less Steve Guttenberg</p><p>Or: How Tommy Came to Join Adam's Band (and Steal His Heart)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love's not mechanical

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011 Lambliff Big Bang.
> 
> Artwork by Miazilla - [Art Master Post]()
> 
> More Extensive Notes at the [Fic Master Post]()

Adam really, really loved his new house; it was big enough for all his things (including all of the stuff he'd had in storage since his mom moved and threatened to burn all of his high school memorabilia... some of those playbills had happy memories) but cozy enough that he wasn't rattling around. The bathroom, in particular, was a thing of beauty with a huge, claw-footed, roll-top tub. The yard was big enough that he could safely have the bathroom window open too; no pap would be able to get him through the stand of trees at the top of his property unless they were will to risk serious injury. He grinned as he picked through the bottles of foaming oil he had in the bathroom cabinet; a good long soak in hot water up to his chin and a fresh breeze blowing in the window, there wasn't much that was more relaxing than that.

He'd just picked out Bergamot and Coriander (super relaxing and a tonic for the spirit) when there was an almighty cawing and the ravens that hung out in his back yard all took off at once. Fucking paps! He'd moved out here for a reason and paid a premium to be surrounded by his own, private property. He checked his face and hair in the bathroom mirror and stalked to the back door. All he wanted was a bit of peace and quiet to relax and be himself.

He hauled open the door, ready to yell at the parasitic scum who was invading his privacy... and stopped dead. There was an alien in the middle of his back yard.

Adam stood, open-mouthed in his doorway as the alien trundled very slowly towards him.

"Uh, hi?" _Oh my God, Oh my_ God! _they picked me, the aliens picked_ me _! Suck it Neil_. "Uh, welcome to my planet."

The alien stopped.

"Don't be scared, I'm a friend."

The alien didn't move.

 _Fuck, it probably doesn't speak English_. "Do you know the word ‘friend’?"

The alien inclined its head slightly to one side.

"Because I am, that. A friend, I mean. I'm very friendly; all the people who interview me say that." He was totally fucking babbling at _the alien in his back yard_. "Uh," Adam put his hands up and stepped forward "I'm going to come to you, okay; I'm very nice and extremely friendly, see? Okay?"

The alien came up to just below his shoulder and it moved its head to look up at him. He could hear, like, servos or something inside it.

"Hi, again. This is Earth, my planet, and I'm Adam, Adam Lambert."

The alien moved its eyebrow things up and down. It looked a little funny.

"Heh. Look, no offence or anything, but... is that really you or is that a space suit or something? Are you really here, like a floating brain inside like a Dalek or something?"

"Malfunction" It sounded kinda like Stephen Hawking, like it needed a translator and like an air-filter or something.

"You can speak English!"

"Malfunction, need input."

"Input. Uh. That’s like information, right? Listen, my brain is just _full_ of that, I remember all kinds of crap. Umm, why don't you come to my house?" Adam waved at his home. "We can talk, umm, get to know each other?" The alien wasn't following him. "Communicate? Input?"

The alien started trundling toward him again.

"Yeah, that's right, come on, we'll do input."

"Need input."

"Right, yeah. Urm, this is a house. We live inside it." He gestured for the alien to follow him inside. "We have a floor," He pointed down.

"House. Floor."

"And, uh, the opposite of a floor, a ceiling, which is an awesome shade of periwinkle."

"Ceiling."

"And windows and books, and that's a piano, and plants, and that's a sculpture Cassidy ma... Don't touch it! It's supposed to represent the expansion of spirit through expression, but it's mostly just arty porn."

"Porn."

"Uh, yeah, pornography."

"Porn. Pornography. Input."

Adam nearly choked. "I'm giving you great input."

"More input."

"Fuck. I..." Adam turned his head, looking for something that would be good input. "Ah ha!" The encyclopedias he got for his twelfth birthday. "Here, these are _full_ of input."

"Aardvark: a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. [2] It is the only living species of the order Tubulidentata, [3] although other prehistoric species and genera of Tubulidentata are known."

"Fuck, you can read!"

The alien was paging through the encyclopedia very quickly, discarding one volume and picking up the next "Adam, Adams, ...Archer.... Boat... Cat... Entropy... Goat... Moon.... Penguin...Versailles.... Zoo... Input, need more input."

Adam pulled an armful of books off of his bookshelf.

~~

The alien was surrounded by stacks of Adam's books; everything from the pizza takeout menu to an antique copy of the Bible that a very keen and slightly frightening fan had pressed into his hands on the last tour and he'd not had the heart to throw out.

His house looked like a bomb had hit it... a very literate bomb.

"More input, Adam."

"More! There isn't any more. You've read everything in the house!"

"House, home, residence, dwelling, abode, domicile, accommodation, building, shelter."

Adam walked into the great room and the alien trundled after him. "Drapes, pillows, soft-furnishings, flowers, vase."

"Put that down! That's my mo..."

"Numerous fragments. Some large, some small."

Adam sank into a chair. How did you stop an alien completely ruining your home?

...T.V. Yes! The ultimate babysitter! He grabbed the remote and switched it on.

" _Better than all competitors in its field and winner of five industry awards._ "

"Hey! Look! Input!"

"Input, iiiiiinput."

"Good, yes. Here." Adam handed the alien the remote. "You hold this and just. Stay."

"Stay."

"Yes."

Screw bergamot and coriander. Adam needed vodka and possibly some weed.

It was still dark, dawn just starting to blush the sky, when Adam was shocked awake by the dulcet tones of Jon Bon Jovi and he stumbled through his house (only just managing not to trip and fall to his death on the piles of crap that the alien had left behind it) to find the source of the noise and make it stop.

" _We've got to hold on, ready or not. You live for the fight when it's all that you've got_."

The alien was singing along and kind of head banging.

"Uhh, morning?" Adam was fairly sure it _was_ morning, even if it was a much earlier flavor of morning than he usually enjoyed. "You've turned the T.V. up kinda loud?"

" _Turn it up, up, up for our early morning wake up rock!_ "

"Umm. You don't need to do everything they say on T.V., and you've probably watched enough for now, you lose IQ points the longer you watch. There are studies."

"Need input, Adam." The alien was surrounded by piles of CDs and DVDs and every single electronic gadget in the room was switched on.

Adam swore quietly, under his breath, as he stood on the sharp corner of the box that held his tour DVD. It was a shame the alien hadn't turned up before he'd had to review all of the footage that had been edited down into that, watching it had been a fucking miserable job. He reached for the remote and tried to pull it out of the alien's grasp. "Gimme that. You're going to become an alien couch potato."

"Potato. _All the fluffy goodness of home-cooked fries, in a convenient microwavable box._ "

"No, look." Adam finally pulled the remote loose and switched the T.V. off. "Come outside, I want to show you something."

Adam beckoned for the alien to follow him out of the door and around the side of the house. He'd paid a lot of money for the raised deck and infinity pool, but the view was _awesome_ (especially at this time of day, even if he usually preferred to see it before going to bed rather than after he'd gotten up) and it was totally worth every cent; the paps would need one hell of a telephoto lens (and probably a helicopter) to get a picture of him swimming or… well he was sure that Isaac was happy that no one had gotten ay pictures of him skinny dipping at the house warming.

One of the ravens that lived out the back was dive bombing the pool, but it flew off as the alien came out of the door.

"Bird. Crow. _Mommy’s got a scarecrow, gotta let the corn grow_."

"Was that Marilyn _Manson_?"

"Deep lyrics, man."

Adam shook his head. "Just, look. No, over there." Adam pointed a where the sun was just beginning to rise. "Isn't it beautiful?"

"Light bulb."

"No, Sun."

"G2V yellow star, mostly hydrogen. Beautiful." The alien trundled forward, tilting its head from one side to the other, looking at the pinks and purples in the sky. And fell off the edge of the deck.

"Oh my God!" Adam ran down the steps at the side and round to where the alien had fallen into the rose bushes. "Are you okay?" It wasn't moving. "Please don't be hurt, I don't know any alien mouth to mouth, please, just, say something?!"

"Beautiful Adam."

The alien started rocking back and forwards like it was trying to dislodge itself from the bush, so Adam reached in to help and his hand brushed over something that felt like a label.

"`Strategic Artificially Intelligent Insurgent Deterrent prototype number 5. Syco robotics, Los Angeles, USA.` You're a _robot_? You're a robot made by _Simon Cowell_?!"

"Yes."

"I thought you were alive. I let you destroy my house... Mom's never going to forgive me for that vase." Adam glared at the robot, which seemed to be trying to make itself look small. "You're just a machine made for Simon Cowell's universal take-over bid. I'm so dumb."

"Dumb: Stupid, gullible, doltish, dumbbell."

"Shut up!"

"Shut up: Silence, hush, sit on it, can it."

"Ugh. You have the most annoying programming ever. I wonder why they didn't program you to clean up after yourself."

Adam stalked back into the house and the robot followed after him. He absolutely did not admire how it climbed the stairs on its track things.

"I'm going to call Syco, get you picked up and my house cleaned up."

"Clean up: To make clean or orderly. To dispose of, settle. To make a large profit, often in a short period of time."

"Yeah, exactly. And you're not making Simon any profit while you're here. I'll bet there's a reward for your return and I can replace mom's vase." Adam checked the book for Syco (manufacturing division)'s phone number and started dialing. "Hello, I'd like to speak to the person in charge of annoying robots please."

Apparently Syco had an entire department for annoying robots, and he got transferred straight away. " _Syco Robotics, how may I help you?_ "

"Hello, I've got one of your robots."

" _Good God!_ " There was a noise of the phone at the other end being covered up and some whispered arguing.

Adam waited until it seemed like someone was listening again. "Yeah, it turned up in my back yard and it's made a mess of my house. Is there a rew..."

The guy at the other end of the phone sounded horribly obsequious. " _ah yes Mr. Lambert, thank you very much for calling. Our people are on their way._ "

"I never told you who I was!"

" _We have Caller ID, Mr. Lambert._ "

"Oh, but, I'm unlis..."

" _In the meantime, it's important you keep a safe distance._ "

"What?!"

" _It's malfunctioning; it won't be safe to be near until we've disassembled it and checked it out. Try and keep everyone as far away from it as possible._ "

"How much is something like that worth?" Adam started backing out of the door very, very quietly, so the robot wouldn't notice him then turned and walked quickly into the kitchen.

" _Worth? I don't know, like a few hundred bucks, maybe?_ "

"So, there's no reward for its return, then?"

" _Well I'm sure we could arrange a tour of our facilities, you and the big boss, it would be a great press opportuni..._."

A few hundred bucks his ass, and the robot seemed approximately as dangerous as a drunk kitten. No way was Simon getting more free publicity out of him. "Like hell, organize someone to bring some compensation when you come to pick it up." He hung up and went back into the great room to see what the robot was doing.

 _Shit!_ Where the fuck was it?

Oh. Right. The back door was open and when Adam suck his head out he could see the robot trundling after a butterfly, reaching up for it with its robot hands.

"Butterfly: Lepidoptera, holometabolous insect. Not a moth. Beautiful."

"Listen, hey! Robot!"

The robot ignored him.

"Number 5! I just called Syco and they're coming out to get you. They'll give you a tune up."

Number 5 turned to look at him. "Tune-up? Input."

"They'll take you apart, find out which screw is loose."

"Apart: Undone, dismantle, dissect, disassemble."

"Right."

The butterfly landed right on Number 5's nose and Number 5 made a robotic cooing noise.

Then it smashed the butterfly in its hand.

"Hey!" It had been a fabulous, large butterfly and now the stupid robot had killed it. ”Look what you did."

"Error!" Number 5 held the butterfly remains out to him. "Butterfly disassembled. Reassemble."

Adam sat heavily on the grass.

"Reassemble."

"I can't reassemble her. She's dead."

"Dead?"

"Right. Dead as a doornail."

"Reassemble, Adam, reassemble."

"Look, I know you don't understand, but when you're dead, you're dead. That's just how it is. Dead is forever."

Number 5 started circling, waving its arms agitatedly. "Squash. Dead. Disassemble. Dead!" It broke off suddenly and started heading around the side of the house to the driveway. "Disassemble! Dead!"

"Hey! Slow down!" Adam hauled himself up off of the ground.

"No disassemble."

"Where are you going?"

"Please! Escape! No disassemble!"

Then, of course, just to top off the fucking weirdest day ever, Monte turned up in his fucking _parent mobile_ and nearly ran Number 5 the fuck over.

"No disassemble Number 5, no disassemble Number 5, no disassemble Number 5, no disassemble Number 5, no disassemble....."

Number 5 was rolling back and forwards in front of Monte.

"Whoa," Monte held his hands up in pacifying gesture and turned his head towards Adam. "Adam! What the hell?"

"No disassemble Number 5, no disassemble Number 5, no disassemble Number 5, no disassemble Number 5, no disassemble....."

"It's a robot Simon Cowell built. Or had built, anyway. Fuck knows why it's here... It was kinda cute until I told it the Syco guys were coming to get it."

"Come! Get! Tune-up! Disassemble! Dead! No disassemble Number 5." Number 5 rolled up in front of Monte and grabbed him around his knees. "Please! Escape!"

"Ahh! Get off'a me!" Monte whacked Number 5 on the side of the head.

"Ouch." Number 5 let go of Monte and rolled backwards.

"Did it hurt you, Monte?" Everything was completely _fucked_. He had a homicidal depressed robot in his yard, his house was trashed... just...

"No, he just surprised me."

"Surprised: astonished, astounded, flabbergasted. Violent." Number 5 drew its arms back and did that thing where it made itself look small again. Adam was fairly sure it was sulking.

"Sorry, Number 5. I shouldn't've hit you. You startled me."

Number 5 stretched up again and rolled towards Monte. "I forgive you Monte."

"Uhh, thank you." Monte looked at Adam quizzically.

"I don't know! It's a _robot_! The Syco people should be here soon."

"No! Monte! Please! No disassemble!"

Monte reached out and patted Number 5 on the shoulder. "Hey, it's okay Number 5." He dropped to a crouch like he was talking to one of his kids. "No one's gonna disassemble anyone."

"No disassemble."

"No." Monte stood up. "Adam, he's shaking - I don't know what Simon's doing, but he's not exactly a humanitarian and Number 5 is obviously scared."

"Scared, frightened, afraid, worried, petrified." Number 5 nodded and rolled closer to Monte.

Adam felt... annoyed, or, no. He felt _guilty_. Number 5 had come to him, he'd told it that everything was going to be okay and now it was terrified and hiding behind Monte. "Okay, look, they'll be here soon, we should get out of here. Can we take your car Monte?"

"Sure, but yours is cleaner."

"Yours is bigger." Adam grinned. "Come on Number 5, we're taking a road trip."

"Oh boy! _Miles of pavement disappearing behind you, music on the radio, freedom_!"

[](http://work.worktodo.org/lj/albums/LNM/miazilla_illustration_4_metalhands.jpg)

It took a little arranging, moving the seats around in the back to make enough space for Number 5's wheelbase, but they fitted and no one would be able to see in through the tinted windows in the back unless they were real, real close.

Of course, when Monte turned the key they were just about deafened by Bon Jovi _again_ , but Number 5 kind of head banged and sang along more or less in tune, so Adam didn't immediately switch it to something better.

" _Gina dreams of running away, When she cries in the night..._."

~~

Number 5 had discovered Monte's kids' stash of Disney princess magazines and was powering through them, muttering the answers to the _which princess are you_ quiz and the _spot the difference_.

"Adam, uh." Monte spoke quietly "not that I don't like driving around aimlessly with stolen property in the back, but do we have some kind of plan here?"

"I...fuck." Adam thumped his head backward onto the headrest. "They knew it was me calling without me telling them, fuck knows if they're like tracking me or whatever. Can I use your phone?"

Monte raised an eyebrow at him. "I know Cowell's kinda terrifying, but I don't think he's _actually_ in the FBI. You just want to use up my minutes."

"Monte..."

"Fine, whatever." Monte pulled his cell from his pocket and dropped it onto Adam's crotch.

"Hey! Watch the goods!"

Monte snorted.

"Adam," Number 5 poked his head through the gap between the front seats "do you believe in inner beauty, outer beauty, a little bit of both or do you not believe in beauty?"

"Uhhhh. a little bit of both, I guess? Wh..."

"You are Belle. Who is beautiful. Beautiful Adam." Number 5 dropped a Disney magazine over Adam's shoulder. "I am Pocahontas with an adventuring spirit."

"You think you could keep your adventuring confined to the back seat for the moment? You're distracting as all hell and anyone looking in the windshield'll be able to see you." Monte turned into a quiet residential street.

"Sorry Monte.” Number 5 pulled backwards and settled down low in the seat. “I don't have enough data on you confirm which princess you are."

"Uh, that's okay dude, my girls already got me. Any idea of our destination yet, Adam?"

Adam's mind was spinning, who the fuck could he call... he had lots of friends who wouldn't think twice about offering help if he called with a robot problem, but if he turned up with an _actual_ robot? Half of them wouldn't be able to keep the news off of Twitter and the other half didn't have enough space to keep a toy robot in, let alone a full-size, world-conquering one like Number 5. He thumbed through Monte's contacts. Isaac! Isaac had a huge garage that he mostly kept clear for impromptu band sessions and he was chill. Yeah, Isaac's place would be _perfect_.

Isaac took forever to answer his phone. "Hey, Isaac, it's Adam."

_"Oh, hey, why're you on Monte's phone?"_

"Long story, look, I've got a favor to ask you."

_"Sure man, what'd'ya need?"_

"Can I, uhh, bring something over and, em, keep it in your garage for a little while?"

 _"What kind of something? I'm pretty sure I didn't hallucinate a garage over at your new place, even if Brad_ did _make the punch for your house warming."_

"Uhh, there's no space, with my car? It's kinda big, and, uh, are you in?"

_"Yeah?"_

"Awesome, we're just pulling onto your street."

 _"You're pretty sure of me, huh? Okay, just, pull straight around to the garage, I'll meet you out there."_ Isaac hung up.

"Just pull straight around to the garage, Monte." Adam huffed out a sigh. Step one of his _hiding a large renegade robot_ plan, complete.

Isaac's eyes more or less bugged straight out of his head when Number 5 trundled out of the back of Monte's car into his garage.

"Oh, wow, what the fuck?"

"That's Number 5." Monte grinned at Isaac and strolled past him out of the hot sun.

"Numbe... Adam? Was that a _robot_?"

"Uh. Yes. Look, can we go inside please?" Adam scanned the neighborhood. It looked quiet, but who knew what was hiding behind those doors?

Monte was showing Number 5 around Isaac's rehearsal space, pointing out Isaac's drums, a guitar and bass, and the crappy keyboard he kept to tool around on. The guitar was one of Monte's and fuck knew where the bass came from, it wasn't from the piece of shit, scum-sucking, tabloid whore bassist that he'd hired for their last tour, anyway. Maybe it was from Isaac's other band.

Number 5 rolled slowly towards Isaac. "Isaac Carpenter. Drummer for Loaded and Adam Lambert's live band. Sick beats, man."

Isaac laughed. "Seriously? Is this thing for real?"

"Real: being or occurring in fact or actuality; having verified existence; not illusory. Yes. I am real, Isaac."

"Wow, okay, nice. What's your name?"

"Name." Number 5 made a sad little noise like he was powering down or something. "No. No name. My designation is Number 5."

Adam felt shitty and he didn't really know why; he hadn't named anything in years, since he got too old to have toys that needed back stories and personalities to make them cool. "Hey, come on now, you've had enough input to pick your own name."

Number 5's fans whirred. "I can choose my name?"

"Yeah. Lots of people don't like the designation they've been given so they pick a new name, half of L.A.'s picked their own." Adam smiled encouragingly at Number 5.

"My name is Gina."

"Whoa! No." Monte put up his hands. "I know you've spent a lot of time with Adam and he's all about bending norms or whatever, but you're a dude. Gina's a chick's name."

Isaac looked at Monte. "How the fuck do you know he's a guy? It's not like he's got junk."

"He just. He's a guy. You called him he."

Isaac shrugged. "Mmh, yeah, I guess I did." He patted Number 5. "You got any other ideas?"

Number 5 bent his head to one side. "What is a six string?"

"You can't name yourself after a guitar!" Monte was beginning to look a little worked up.

"Six string, guitar, musician. Like Adam and Monte and Isaac. My friends." Number 5 turned in a little circle. "My name is Tommy. Tommy 5."

"Tommy's cool I guess." Monte nodded and grabbed his guitar and started tuning.

"Monte guitar. Isaac drums. Adam sing. Camilla keyboard. J..."

"Shh! We don't mention that name." Isaac clapped his hand over where Tommy's mouth would probably be.

Tommy stopped speaking and raised his eyebrows.

"We're all cool, Cam's awesome, but the other one's... history." Isaac looked at Adam as he spoke; Justin had been a professional fucking nightmare for all of them, but Adam was the one who'd had to bear the brunt of the personal cost, with private stories getting out to the press and a guy who might have turned into someone special being scared off when Justin's pictures of the two of them together (doing mundane, domestic shit, nothing a pap would have known to photograph) ended up on the internet.

"History: a record or narrative description of past events. Need more input Isaac, how can a person be history?"

"Uhh, it's another meaning of history... Like, in the past and we don't talk about him at all anymore."

"He is not a friend anymore?" Tommy rolled towards Adam, dragging Isaac with him.

"No, Tommy, he's not a friend." Adam swallowed down the taste of bile that always rose in his throat when they talked about Justin. "I don't think he ever really was."

Tommy reached out and patted Adam's arm. "Tommy is Adam's friend."

"Yeah, I guess." Adam narrowed his eyes a little; he wasn't entirely sure where this conversation was going.

"Openly gay American Idol runner up Adam Lambert surrounds himself with friends on tour."

"Shit, Tommy, did you read my mom's press cuttings file?"

Tommy nodded. "Input. Input about Adam."

Isaac started giggling. "You keep your press cuttings?"

"My _mom's_ press cuttings file."

"At your new house." Isaac could barely breathe for laughing.

"Can it, Isaac, or we won't be friends any more, either."

Tommy reversed away from Adam, turned around and rolled up to Monte. "Monte. Can you teach me how to play the bass? Need musical input."

"Please." Said Monte automatically, conditioned by years of parenting.

"Please?"

"It's polite to say please when you're asking for something."

Tommy whirred and raised an eyebrow. "Monte, please can you teach me how to play the bass? Need musical input."

"Sure, why not?." Monte looked at Adam and shook his head.

~~

Monte and Isaac were both crowded around Tommy, demonstrating how to play the bass (Isaac was giving Tommy lessons in head banging too, which worried Adam a little bit. Surely that couldn't be good for his servos). For a robot, Tommy was _good_ at bass (hell, not even just for a robot, he'd picked up the riff from _Under Pressure_ in seconds and Adam was pretty sure that Monte was teaching him where he would come in on _Down the Rabbit Hole_. Monte was patient, but he wouldn't waste his time teaching more than the basics to someone who didn't have some kind of talent), which gave Adam a moment to collapse onto the ratty old couch in the corner and do some serious thinking. He was beginning to feel like he was in some kind of conspiracy theory movie, which he _hated_ and was woefully under equipped for.

Obviously he knew all about alien abduction and crap - Burning Man and a bunch of friends who were very passionate about their mind expansion saw to that - and sticking it to the man was a theory he was broadly on board with, but this shadowy corporate bullshit... totally not his thing. Totally not any of his friends' thing either. Fuck. He was going to have to call the smart ass.

Making a mental note to give Monte some cash to cover his calls, Adam dialed the one person he knew that had any kind of expertise in cover ups and conspiracies.

"Hi, Neil, I need to talk to you about something..."

~~

Neil took a bit of persuading (Adam felt a little stung that he'd had to talk to Monte before he believed any part of what Adam was saying. Surely family loyalty should count for something. He'd given Neil a _job_ for fuck's sake) but he'd agreed to catch the next flight to L.A. and come and help out. In the meantime he'd made Adam switch off his cell phone so Syco couldn't track him (fucking technology. Who knew you didn't even have to _call_ someone for them to find you) and gotten Monte to make a call outside, publicly, where whoever the fuck could hear him, to tell Lisa that he and Isaac were working on some new stuff for Monte's next show.

Isaac had done a food run and spun his wife some story about Monte having a creative meltdown and needing some time to work things out. Now they just had to wait.

~~

Adam sucked at waiting. He got antsy and bored and he couldn't even use his piece-of-shit IPhone in case they found him, found Tommy. He was totally not wearing the right boots for sitting on his ass in a garage.

He started picking at his nail polish, it was this awesome black with dark grey glitter through it, like the starless expanse of space, and he'd pretty much taken it all off of his left hand when Monte shouted. "Hey, Lambert, get your ass over here, I wanna see how Tommy does with a full-on performance."

Tommy was bouncing up and down. It shouldn't really have been possible for a robot to look that excited. "Please Adam. This song is totally sick."

Isaac laughed and started beating out the rhythm for Monte and Tommy to join in. Monte was filling in more of the melody than he usually did, but it still sounded weird without the keys... Tommy sounded good though, and... Adam looked at Monte to see if Tommy was doing what Adam thought he was. Monte nodded.

 _Fuck,_ a robot shouldn't be able to play around like that, surely? Creating a new riff like that? Adam damn near missed his cue to start singing, and that was definitely an electronic giggle from Tommy...It was _good_ to sing with a band again, even a fucking weird band with no keys and a robot bassist. It felt... _right_ , Tommy felt _right_.

They ran through most of the tour set, and a couple of things he hadn't sung since Idol, just finishing one song and moving on to whatever someone started playing next. It was _fun_ and Adam found himself gravitating towards Tommy when he was singing, kept leaning in to touch and... it was really fucking weird when he thought about it, but yeah. He could almost see why the label wanted him to start auditioning bass players again, even if Cam could fill in fine with synth bass, having Tommy there made the chemistry on stage feel better.

Isaac went and got them some more food, and tea for Adam, and they were pretty much just tooling around, playing with the instruments and lyrics, and Monte had his notebook out to write down some stuff that sounded kinda interesting, when Neil arrived.

"Holy shit. You guys weren't joking, huh?"

Adam glared at Neil. "No. I don't joke about important shit, you know that."

"How the fuck was I supposed to know that you stealing someone's fucking state of the art fucking _war robot_ was a real thing that actually happened?! It's not exactly normal, even for you."

Adam growled and turned to Tommy. "Tommy, this is my brother, Neil. Neil, this is Tommy."

"Neil Lambert, younger sibling of Adam Lambert. Male. Greetings." Tommy reached out to shake Neil's hand.

"Greetings. Uh." Neil raised an eyebrow at Adam. "You're calling it _Tommy_?"

"He's calling himself Tommy."

Neil looked at Adam like he'd grown another head. "Uh-huh. You know it's a machine, right?"

Adam narrowed his eyes at Neil. "He's a person."

"He's a robot. It. It's a robot."

"I asked you here to _help_ , Neil, not to insult my friend. Shake his hand and apologize for being so fucking insensitive."

Neil huffed out a sigh, gingerly grasped Tommy's finger and shook it. "Fuck, you're completely ridiculous Adam. Okay, look, I'll make a phone call to a friend of mine; Jeni's post-grad was in robotics and artificial intelligence and shit like that, and there are tests I can run to prove it's just programming, but I want to talk to her first."

"It's not just programming, Neil." Adam was _sure_ , he'd fucked around with those stupid question/answer bot things online and they were connected to like super computers and they still didn't make any sense, Tommy talked and learned and... fuck, he'd spent all day with Tommy, and when they'd been playing he'd felt this weird kinda.... Adam turned and walked away. Neil was here to be the rational one, here to help him out, and he needed to let Neil do his tests. There was no fucking way he had more on-stage chemistry with _just_ a machine than he had with Justin, even if Justin was an enormous fucking asshole. "Test him, you'll see it's not just programming."

Neil gave him a look, like the one he used when Adam had tried out the cayenne pepper diet, and went back outside to make his call. Tommy came over and waited near Adam, like five feet away and looking in the opposite direction. Adam was worried that he was being fucking ridiculous (what if he was imagining some kind of emotional connection with a machine? A fucking _war robot_ at that, normal rock stars got attached to Real Dolls...) and it was _making_ him be fucking ridiculous, he knew that, he would have known that even if Monte and Isaac hadn't retreated all the way over to the other side of the garage to look at the pictures of Monte's kids that he kept on his phone in a very obvious _we're not paying you any attention_ kinda way. Monte wasn't usually that subtle when he thought Adam was fucked up over something.

"Tommy?"

Tommy turned around "Yes, Adam."

"It was fun, singing with you this afternoon."

Tommy nodded and rolled forwards, just slightly. "It made my joints oily."

"Uhh. That sounds urm, messy?"

"Not messy, necessary. Beautiful things make my joints oily. Your voice is beautiful."

Adam could totally hear what Brad would have to say about Adam lubricating Tommy's joints and he had to swallow hard not to snicker. "Thank you?"

"No, thank you, Adam, and Monte and Isaac. I'm glad I woke up with you."

"Woke up?"

Tommy nodded again.

Neil came back inside. "Well, shit. Jeni works for Syco now, but I think I bullshitted her enough. She thinks I'm still in New York... I fucking wish."

"Should we move?" Adam was already running through the places they could go in his head.

"No. No, it'll be okay and I switched off my cell as soon as I hung up. We'll be easier to spot if we're driving around aimlessly and I need somewhere to run through this shit with Tommy."

Adam stood up and walked in front of Tommy, between him and Neil. "This shit isn't going to hurt him, is it?"

"Oh for fuck's s... No. One: he's a robot. He doesn't have nerves, he has sensors, he can't actually feel pain, at most he can gauge pressure or resistance and maybe measure temperature and the percentage of moisture in the atmosphere. Two: I'm only going to ask some questions. I can't even actually perform the Turing test here, let alone some kind of invasive robot surgery. All I can do is a version of the Minimum Intelligent Signal test and run through some CAPTCHA-like things."

Adam blinked at Neil. What he'd said probably made sense, but fuck knew how.

"I just need to talk to him. It. Fuck. Ad, move over."

"If you hurt _him_ I will kick your fucking ass." Adam stepped aside.

"Yeah, you and whose army?" Neil rolled his eyes. "Tommy, come over to the chair over there, I need to ask you some questions to _confirm life_ , or, you know, disprove it."

Monte and Isaac had walked over to Tommy while Adam and Neil were talking and they were standing protectively next to him.

"Of course he's fucking _alive_." Monte looked furious.

"He's a musician. A fucking _good_ musician." Isaac had his arms folded, which shouldn't really have looked all that impressive on someone so short, but Adam knew exactly how strong Isaac was and so did Neil. That was whose army, right there.

Neil glared at Adam. "I blame you for everything that's weird in my whole fucking life."

~~

Isaac left the garage and went back into his house to spend some time with his wife, and Adam insisted Monte left them, too. They'd been on tour for too damn long for him to be keeping them away for their families when they were home. Monte made Adam promise to call him if they needed a ride anywhere, but Adam figured that if they knew he had Tommy, they'd know who he'd ask for help and Monte had been a close friend for years. Isaac was newer so hopefully they wouldn't think he was someone Adam would go to...

Adam sat and picked all that remained of his nail polish off and tried not to listen in to the questions Neil was asking Tommy. Of course Tommy knew Neil's foot was smaller than the fucking Sun.

"Okay, you fucking win." Neil glared at him again. "Tommy's got a consciousness that I can't determine to be anything other than alive."

"Tommy 5 is alive!" Tommy looped backwards in lazy circles across the garage to Adam. "Tommy 5 is alive!"

Adam whooped, unable to keep the noise inside his chest. "I _knew_ it. I fucking knew." He grinned at Neil, who seemed to be trying fairly unsuccessfully not to smile. "We should find somewhere safer to go, we need to hide out for a little while."

"How'd you propose we hide Tommy? He's not exactly pocket-sized."

"Uh. I'll call Brad, get him to hire a tru..."

Neil shook his head. "Nuh-uh. I love Brad, man, I really do, he's good times and he's a fucking great friend, but he's all over Twitter like a..."

"Brad has never, ever sold me out. Ever. Even when the press was fucking hounding him during idol, he kept it all quiet, held his own council."

"Yeah, but with this?"

"If I ask him, he'll do it."

Tommy rolled right up close to Adam and angled himself into him. It was kinda strange, but Adam put his arm around Tommy and even with the cold sharp edges, Adam felt better. He wanted to make Tommy feel safe. “Fine, okay, look, just let me think this out, then you can call Brad.”

“Sure, you’re the expert with this kind of thing.”

Neil glared at him and stalked over to the corner and started drawing on the floor using some sidewalk chalk he’d gotten from Monte.

“So Tommy, you wanna watch a movie while Neil’s getting all Banksy over there?”

“Banksy, street artist. Neil, sidewalk chalk.” Tommy started making a strange noise, and vibrating. It took Adam a moment to realize he was laughing. “Adam’s funny.”

“Uh, thank you, I guess. So, uh, you wanna watch a movie?” Adam gestured at the old TV Isaac kept in the garage and the pile of DVDs next to it. “I’m pretty sure he’s got my favorite out here, I gave it to him when we were on tour.”

“Favorite. Good. Yes, please, Adam. It’ll be rad.”

Adam shook his head; Tommy was like a sponge, absorbing language and behavior from the people around him. “I should never have introduced you to Isaac.”

“Isaac is cool, man.”

“Isaac is a throwback to _Sweet Valley High_.” Adam picked through the DVDs and pulled out _Velvet Goldmine_. “This is cool.”

~~

Tommy had gotten totally into the movie, head banging to the music and tugging on Adam’s sleeve when something exciting was happening on screen. Adam wasn’t exactly comfortable, sitting on the cold floor, hugging around Tommy’s waist, but he wouldn’t have moved for a million bucks and a Grammy nomination.

He felt kinda stupid, it was dumb to be so happy cuddled up to a stolen robot on his drummer’s garage floor, but he was. He was happier than he’d been in months; it was first time he’d been able to spend any real quality time with a friend since the tour ended and….he grinned as Tommy squealed at Curt and Brian in bed together.

“You’ve got a romantic soul, Tommy.”

“And Curt Wilde’s _hot_!” Tommy petted Adam’s hair.

Adam laughed, he didn’t think he’d said anything about _that_ , but maybe Tommy had picked up on changes in his temperature or something. Neil always said that he was entirely obvious.

  
There was an almighty fucking bang on the garage door.

Adam curled himself further around Tommy as it caved under pressure of a fucking battering ram and a bunch of guys wearing black face masks ran in towards them. Neil ran to the back door, but the face mask guys herded him back to Adam and Tommy.

"Oh, how very touching."

A cold shiver ran down Adam's spine and he curled tighter around Tommy. Simon Fucking Cowell.

"You always did get a little dramatic, Adam. Number 5 is a state of the art machine. Anything that can damage it would turn you into jam, so perhaps you could unwrap yourself and talk to me properly."

Adam did _unwrap_ himself, but only so he could stand up to his full heeled-boot height and look down on Simon.

"Dr. Chua!" Simon shouted over his shoulder. "Get in here and disable this blasted machine."

"No!" _Disable!?!_ No, they couldn't, not Tommy... Adam made sure he was between Tommy and Simon.

"Oh come along Adam, Number 5 is my company's property, stop this stupid tantrumming and get out of the way. You should be very glad I'm not pressing charges."

"No, you can't, he's _alive_."

A pretty woman in a white coat pushed her way through the black mask guys.

"It's a _machine,_ Adam, you're really far too old to anthropomorphize inanimate objects." Simon turned to the woman and gestured around Adam to Tommy. "Doctor, please."

Dr. Chua walked towards Tommy, but before Adam could get in front of her Neil pushed forwards and grabbed her arm. "I ran the tests, Jeni. If you switch him off, it's murder."

"Oh good Lord! You Lamberts are ridiculous; it's a _machine_. Get out of the way, Adam, and take your brother with you. Please try not to forget how much damage I can do to your career without even having to try."

Tommy tapped Adam gently on the shoulder. "A tactical analysis of the situation suggests that their superior numbers and weapons are enough that they will win any combat."

Adam turned around and curled himself over Tommy. "They're not going to shoot us Tommy, not where people could find out."

"They wouldn't need to, Adam. I calculate that they will win no matter what course of action we take; the best outcome results from me surrendering now."

"What? No, Tommy..."

"Adam, if we hold out there is a high probability that Simon Cowell will use his influence to destroy your career. You, Monte, Isaac, no jobs, no music. I will surrender now." Tommy gently lifted Adam's arms from around him and rolled towards Dr. Chua with his arms up. "I surrender, Dr. Chua."

"I, uh." She shook her arm free from Neil's grasp. "Mr. Cowell, it is imperative that I study what happened to cause this anomaly; switching the machine off at this point could irreparably clear the data logs. I can override the system into transport mode however, which should preserve the logs and ensure that the machine is unable to cause harm."

"Yes, yes, whatever." Simon rolled his eyes. "Adam, I suggest you get on with writing your next album. Your fans won't wait forever." He turned on his heel and stalked out, and Dr. Chua, Tommy and the black-masked guys followed.

Adam followed them as far as the gaping remains of the door, watched Tommy roll into the back of an unmarked truck and the door slam behind him. Adam waited until all the Syco trucks had pulled away before he turned back into the garage and slid down the wall.

Neil left him be as he pulled his knees up, put his head down, and wept.

Four months had passed since the _incident_ (no one but Neil would call it anything but that; and even Neil didn't mention Tommy's name, just muttered about _those Syco fuckers_ ) and the album was in the can, ready to launch in a blaze of T.V. appearance glory. Monte had taken over a lot of the creative control, after he had realized that Adam would have filled it with heartbreak tracks and alienated half of his audience... Adam couldn't bring himself to care all that much, but he trusted Monte, and it was a relief not to have to worry about every tiny little detail when all he wanted to do was mourn for someone who had never really existed at all.

Of course, T.V. appearances meant band, which meant auditioning for a new fucking bass player because none of the session guys they'd used on the album could commit to him long term. He'd tried arguing that Cam could easily just add synth bass but the label insisted, saying that he'd been completely out of sight for months and he couldn't change his whole set up and still expect people to buy his music.

He was trying not to be too completely diva-bitchy in the audition room, but _none_ of the bass players there fit his look or his sound or... their energy was just way fucking off. The guys from the label were beginning to look annoyed and even Monte had started giving him meaningful looks every time Adam said _no_.

Three hours into auditions one of the label guys called the last bass player into the room. "This is it, Adam. Either you hire him or we'll hire someone for you."

"What? You can't fucking do that!"

"Yes, we can, and we will. I suggest you like him."

Adam turned to glare at the guy walking into the room, already hating him just for being there. Except. Adam closed his eyes and pinched his nose, trying not to rub his eye makeup. The guy was really fucking pretty, lean and pale, with dark eye makeup and bleached-blond hair all bangs and buzzed up the sides. He took a deep breath. Okay, his look was okay, but he probably played for shit.

"Okay, uh," Monte looked down at the list, "T.J., what are you going to play for us?"

T.J. looked up through his hair and smiled at Monte. "I thought I'd play _Livin' On a Prayer_? I know it's a little weird for bass, but it kinda means a lot to me."

Adam dropped his head into his hands.

Monte squeezed Adam's shoulder. "Yeah, sure, whenever you're ready."

He had no fucking escape anywhere, in less than twenty four hours a stupid machine that shouldn't even have known that it wanted to have a name had completely fucked up Adam's life. He swallowed, hard. This guy was _good_ , even if he was playing Tommy's song.

Adam stood up abruptly and took a deep breath. "You're hired." He waved a hand at the label guys. "These guys'll set up your paperwork, Monte'll get you a rehearsal schedule." There. Done. He hurried out of the room, out of the whole fucking building, to the tinted-window privacy of his car.

His heart was racing when he got in and pulled on his seatbelt. Fuck, he was in no condition to drive, not yet. He sat back in his seat, closed his eyes and just breathed, in and out, trying to calm the fuck down.

He'd been sitting there for what felt like an hour, but was probably less, when there was a tap on his window. "Adam..." T.J. was standing there and he'd cupped his hands up to the window to try to see through the tinting. "Adam, I can see you, I... please, can I talk to you?"

Adam pressed the button to roll down the window. "This isn't a real good time."

"I know, Adam, but..." T.J. bit at his lip, looked behind him and stuck his wrist into the car.

"What the...!"

T.J. reached in, slit the skin just where his hand joined his wrist with his thumbnail and pushed it back. _Holy FUCK_. T.J. was a robot.

"Beautiful Adam."

"Tommy?"

"Yeah."

"But... Tommy?!?" Adam's chest felt tight and he couldn't breathe properly.

"Yeah." Tommy smiled at him. "Jeni didn't disassemble me, and when Syco decided that it was easier to take over the world using pleasure bots rather than war robots we... appropriated one of the bots."

"You..."

"I am a mark nine x pleasure bot. Highly customized, fully functional and entirely me." Tommy grinned.

"But..."

"I am very good at computer programming, Syco don't even know I ever existed."

"And..."

"They have my old body. Jeni powered it off once she had me in the mainframe," Tommy pursed his lips. "That was _rad_!"

"I. Fuck. _Tommy_." Adam's mind was racing, it was Tommy, Tommy was here, fuck, "How, what, I..."

"Jeni helped me adapt to my new input devices - I have skin-touch sensors now and no lasers - and then she quit working at Syco to go back to school. She's my roommate."

"But how, Tommy? How are you, you?"

"Jeni's still trying to work it out, but there was a power surge and my memory starts not long after that." Tommy leaned into the car. "It still doesn't make a lot of sense, but the universe is infinite and sometimes it does strange things. All I know is that there was before, when everything was, like, in my circuits and I didn't need input because I had the radio signal and there was no me. Then there was the `major malfunction` which, like, pushed me into escape mode or something and I overloaded with input and then I stopped in your yard and there was a me and you were there and you said you were my friend."

"I thought you were an alien." Adam didn't want to blink in case he was dreaming.

Tommy laughed. "It's good that you're beautiful."

"It's just as likely as an attack war robot! And anyway, you just accepted that I was your friend, I could have been anyone!" Adam's chest tightened again at the thought that someone else could have found Tommy, that he could have been disassembled and never have lived at all.

Tommy smiled and stroked his thumb across Adam's cheek. "You're beautiful, Adam, and you oiled my joints right from the start."

Despite himself, Adam laughed. "Am I going to have to worry about you going off with every half-way decent-looking guy you meet, Tommy?"

"No. I." Tommy screwed up his face and made a frustrated gesture with his hand. "There are, like, so many beautiful things and people, but you're the only one that fills me up here." He patted his chest, right by his collarbone. He looked down at his wrist and pushed his skin flat up to his hand again then looked back up at Adam. "And you're the only one I dream about."

Adam couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled up and made him grin. "Fuck, Tommy, can you... can I take you home? Will Jeni be waiting..?"

"I have an IPhone, I can call her." Tommy raised an eyebrow.

"What the hell has she been teaching you?"

"I had internet access when I was in the mainframe. Can I get into the car, please?"

"Oh fuck. Yes!" Adam reached over and unlocked the passenger door as Tommy walked aroundthe front of the car. "I'm never letting you out of my sight again."

Tommy climbed into shotgun. "Then I'm glad I researched some activities we could do."

Adam shoved the car into drive and pulled away before Tommy could say any more.


End file.
